All things work zone and rural ITS

Day: August 20, 2018

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We in the work zone traffic control world and specifically the work zone ITS world have long wrestled with how best to gather and evaluate work zone data. This has been a topic of discussion at conferences, peer-to-peer exchanges, and in DOTs nationwide. These systems are now providing a great deal of data and the FHWA feels it is time we settled on a standard approach to that data. In response, they have launched the Work Zone Data Initiative (WZDI).

The stated goals of the initiative are:

“To develop a recommended practice for managing work zone data.” And to “create a consistent language for communicating information on work zone activity across jurisdictional and organizational boundaries.”

They are working to develop a specification for work zone data that supports DOT efforts throughout the project and also allows some sort of standardized evaluation and comparison once that project is complete. They want the data to become more useful for project planning, for real-time traffic operations, and for post project analytics.

This is something our industry must be involved in. Please let us know if you are. But if you are not, please contact Todd Peterson, FHWA Work Zone Management Team Transportation Specialist to express your interest. His email address is Todd.Peterson@dot.gov .

USDOT has also announced a competition on Advancing Innovative Ways to Analyze Crash Data. They point out that most crash data (as well as work zone data) is siloed and made available only on an annual basis. By opening those sources of data up, DOT hopes to take advantage of new tools such as machine learning (see 4/10/17 post) to gain insights on ways we can reduce roadway fatalities.

This effort is not work zone specific, but could result in improvements that our past state and project specific analysis was unable to find.